Chrono Cross vs Final Fantasy IX vs Half-Life vs The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 2009
Results Round One Sunday, April 26th, 2009 Ulti's Analysis I really have to disagree about Ocarina of Time "winning" round 1 over Final Fantasy 7. The total votes for Ocarina's match were higher, but that's about it. I'd pick Mario Kart 64 over Final Fantasy 9 with ease, I'd pick Star Fox 64 over Half-Life with equal ease, and does anyone care about Suikoden versus Chrono Cross? A game no one has played against one of the worst games ever made, whoopdeedoo. At worst, it was a wash, and at best I'd score a slight win to FF7 here. As for the other games, the surprising second round results and demise of the casual shooter had people expecting a Half-Life loss even with the Square LFF here, and a loss is exactly what they got. GFNW might not be the fad it once was, but Gordon definitely dropped the ball here in a match tailor made for him to win. Even if the overlap between Final Fantasy 9 and Chrono Cross was minimal, Half-Life should have gotten second here. Instead, it never competed and further spelled out the continual disappointment of the casual shooter this contest. This even had people worrying about Half-Life 2's chances against Final Fantasy 12, but I wouldn't go that far. FF12 is way way more hated than FF9 is. The concern about casual shooters as a whole however was warranted, and why wouldn't it be? They were stinking it up left and right this contest. From a personal perspective, I was very happy with this match's results. Ocarina is the best game in the poll, Final Fantasy 9 is the second best, I have too little experience with Half-Life to comment and there are very few games I want to see suck in a poll more than Chrono Cross. And I got my wish: Chrono Cross sucking it up and scoring a distant last place. God I hate that damn game. What an annoying POS from start to finish. Good riddance. I also tire of having to defend FF9 all the time, so seeing it shut the annoying haters up for one day was glorious. What an awesome result all around. But yeah, good if you have my taste in games, boring contest match if you want exciting close comebacks and such. Match Trends Ngamer's Same Day Analysis Match Prediction Hold up a minute, is FF9 actually a lock to advance today, as my fellow Crewmates have unanimously decided? (Funny, I criticize them for sticking to their FFT-loving brackets after Pokemon shows them up yet here they've abandoned those brackets entirely after seeing a few fireworks from FF!) Let's take a closer look, shall we? To start, here are three points that hopefully we can all agree on: * Half-Life should be stronger than Gordon Freeman. mute protagonists like Link and Mr. Freeman aren't loved for their character appeal, they are supported because their games are so enjoyable- that's why Gordon flopped horribly in the earlier years when he just looked like a blob in those match pics but has become a respectable mid-carder since he started getting pics that displayed the HL logo and helped associate him with the growing franchise * HL2 is the GotY-winning game that really put this series back on the map, but if DKC1 > DKC2 and Sonic 1 > Sonic 2 and RE1 > RE2 are any indication, it's pretty helpful to be the first game in a respected series. so even if HL2 is the stronger entrant, the difference is probably minimal * Ocarina is going to be gobbling up 50% of the vote here, and the hardcore Crono supporters are going to be earning CC another 10%. now maybe OoT goes a little below or climbs a bit higher (anything TOO far above 50 though and I'd be shocked; its facing 3 games with very strong fanbases and I doubt any of them cough up free percentage points like Star Fox did) and maybe CC crumbles a little and only does 8 or 9 percent, but basically this match is going to be decided within that remaining 40% Alright, so in other words, the first game to 20% wins. What kind of track record does Half-Life have then it comes to collecting 20% of the vote? Let's look back at last year. - Gordon pulls down 28.47% against Scorpion, Big Daddy, and Balthier. pretty disappointing, especially considering Scorp beat him cleanly by 2%. clearly Freeman is awful at acting like a vote vaccum against weak competition. but when things get tougher.... - Gordon pulls down 24.49% against Vincent, Scorpion, and Falco. yikes, despite facing the guy who's expected to smash the NN, Freeman only loses 4% and turns a 2% lose to Scorp into a 5% win! clearly this HL fanbase is dedicated, but what happens when we REALLY turn up the heat? - Gordon pulls down 17.82% against Samus, Vincent, and Ganon. even with two NN-level opponents in the house, the HL fanbase not only keeps Gordon around that 20% mark, they allow him to beat Ganon outright! So yes, I'm not crazy enough to pick HL1 > FF9 directly, but I don't have to be for it to win this one, in the same way that you wouldn't have had to take Freeman > Ganon directly! Which is well and good, but has the Valve fanbase ever shown us they're capable of 20% outside of Gordon? - GlaDOS pulls down exactly 20.00% against Vincent, Falco, and Wander. - WCC pulls down 19.18% against Cloud, Snake, and Mewtwo Alright, so those last two may say more about joke entrant potential then they do the Valve fanbase, but I still maintain that Gordon himself is not a joke, that the HL will be even better supported, and that furthermore the fanbase always looks best when the competition is toughest. Tonight will be that hardest competition of all those examples, but HL is going to come through with flying colors, just you watch! DOWN GOES FF9 to the tune of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 48.64% Half-Life - 20.82% Final Fantasy IX - 20.70% Chrono Cross - 9.84% Take THAT, Crew! Next Day Review Ack, darn you HL! Making me look like a fool over here. The sad thing is that my writeup last night wasn't just me grasping at straws in the hopes of one-upping the rest of the Crew; I honestly expected the Valve fanbase to be more static and with HL being in a perfect position where it didn't need a very high percent, I was sure it would be quite close with FF9 in the end. Looking at it now though... actually this poll is massively popular, looking like it's going to end at around 134k which smashes the old record for the season. And HL1 did pretty well for itself when you take that into consideration- it's going to end with 20k votes, which is only a little down from the 22k Gordon pulled in that Samus/Vincent/Ganon match I was pointing back to. Ah well; on the plus side today's result makes me glad for two reasons: because I have Ocarina > FF7, and because I have FF12 > HL2 in a few days here! 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